Garfield Alive

In 2016 Rachel worked with colleague Yu-San Cheng to develop a community arts project that conversed with residents about the ideas of redevelopment and place-making.

Rachel and Yu-San believe in the heart of a community, its people.  Recently, Pittsburgh and it’s neighborhoods have been experiencing drastic changes, almost daily.  With their project, Garfield Alive, they hoped to engage residents in a continued conversation about their own imaginations for their neighborhood; partnering with community members to stay invested in and advocate for community centric redevelopment.

To complete the project, Rachel and Yu-San interviewed youth at Assemble programs along with adults, enlisting the help of Kirsten Rispin to capture voice recordings.  Doing this the team learned what the residents love about Garfield; and what changes they think would be beneficial to their neighborhood.  Once the community shared their thoughts, Rachel and Yu-San painted a series of small representative tiles to display the and dreams for Garfield.  On a Saturday afternoon, youth participating in a Crafternoon were invited to paint similarly sized tiles, which were then displayed next to the ones that Rachel and Yu-San prepared.  On the center of the exhibition wall, Rachel and Yu-San put together a series of larger panels and created a map of Garfield, asking residents and guests to Assemble to add their own imaginations for the neighborhood.

A blog with in-progress posts and photos can be found at: Garfield Alive

On the center of the exhibition wall, Rachel and Yu-San put together a series of larger panels and created a map of Garfield, asking residents and guests to Assemble to add their own imaginations for the neighborhood. Following the culmination of the exhibition, Rachel continued to volunteer with Assemble in support of the community in which she resides.